For once, Granny Frass has to move over because this one’s for Kritter…

For once, Granny Frass had to move over, because this one’s for Kritter – the family I chose, the sister the universe sent me and the loudest laugh in my darkest days... This one is from this side…

I know, I know – Granny Frass has been hogging the limelight in Messages from Beyond. She’s a fierce one, that woman, even on the other side. And between Sir Percival and Darcifer making sly comments and Mam and Dad shuffling themselves into the back pew of the afterlife, it’s getting crowded around here.

But today, I’m calling time on them all. Because this one’s for Kritter.

Kritter wasn’t born into my family, thank God for her. She didn’t have to dodge the same scandals, whispered stories or Sunday morning showdowns. She wasn’t tied to the old wills or who got what land after someone died (or before). But what she was and what she is – is the best damn soul I’ve ever had the luck to collide with in this lifetime.

When I moved to the States, life had its claws in me. You know the kind of season I mean, broke, lost, making mistakes you’d later laugh about but nearly broke you at the time. And there was Kritter. Not with grand speeches or pity but with a grin, a bottle of something stronger than sense, and a ‘come on, we’ll sort it’.

She always said I was there for her through hard times. That I saved her more than once. I never saw it that way. I was just being me. You love the people who make sense to your soul and you show up for them. That’s not heroic. That’s what family’s meant to be.

And God, did we have some nights. I’ll never forget one evening in Galway (Kritter would come home with me on visits, to make things easier), when Kritter insisted on dancing barefoot in the rain outside a pub while some poor fella tried to play the fiddle without dropping it from laughing. We looked like madwomen, drenched, twirling, singing songs we didn’t know all the words to. A couple of old farmers took bets on whether we’d make it home alive. We did, barely, with a stolen road sign and a dog that wasn’t ours for the night.

Those are the people you build your real life around. Not the ones in the family tree but the ones who plant roots in your heart.

So this one’s for Kritter. The sister I chose. The laugh in my darkest hours. The fiercest woman to ever steal a road sign in a storm with me.

And if Granny Frass is up there grumbling about losing her headline spot today – tough. She can wait her turn.

As always, better a cracked pot than a dull one.

Sláinte, Kritter.

Love you more than I ever said, but you always knew.